The Steam Files #C.1: Cortex Command

Publisher/Developer: Data Realms
Release: 28 Sep 2012 (Steam)

Okay, so this choice was a bit of a mistake.

It's got a nice art style though!

Let me clarify that though, because it might otherwise give the wrong impression. I love the concept of this game, where a disembodied brain controls a variety of robots via some kind of Wi-Fi/Telekinesis ability, pitting them in battle against a different disembodied head controlled by an AI (or indeed another player). You can buy equipment and robot bodies to deploy on the field, which are then delivered by a controllable dropship.

So, what's the problem, you ask? Well, the game gives the impression (and I believe this to actually be the case) that it's still a work in progress, which is very well and good but naturally means that the state the game is in can make reviews of it incredible unfair. The problem is that the game is somewhat unplayable against the AI unless you're some gaming god (sadly I am not), and in terms of multiplayer it seems to be designed mostly with split screen or delegated control in mind from a single machine, which I haven't had the opportunity to try out.

However, for an indie game this is a relatively unique concept with a good art style, a good resource system (you dig gold out the ground, and in the campaign you get gold income from any mining site you own at the end of a turn), and the way the rather primitive looking bipedal robots with jetpacks behave somewhat reflects what you'd expect to happen in real life.

The Campaign mode is interesting. It implies that there'd be a storyline, but there isn't. The premise is that you start a campaign where you have a number of gold mines displayed on a map, then you and other players spend resources to scan these sites and then build bases on them. If you encounter an enemy on a map, you then go into a fight where you have to take out the enemy brain whilst protecting your own. However, this area, like the rest of the game, shows sign of needing some work.

However, the game's flaws are readily apparent, the learning curve for the way the game handles is quite high, and the enemy AI is ruthless and punishing and surprisingly intelligent in most cases. Even a hardcore gamer would find this game to be an incredible challenge.

Sadly, I don't think in good conscience I could currently recommend this game at it's retail game (unless of course you like a challenge), but the fact that the game only recently made its Steam début, despite being on my radar for over a year. suggests that the developer is likely to keep supporting and updating it into the future. It's sad, because I do genuinely love this concept, and the base building that shows up in the campaign mode and map editor also show some promise too.

So, if you see a discount on this game, and you like the concept, it may be worth it just to see what the future brings for it, but don't expect this to be a game you can just jump straight into, like many other games I will review over the coming months.

You'll see this a lot. Yes, even in the damn tutorial.

PS: Neither FRAPS nor SteamOverlay works with this game, hence only two screenshots.

The Steam Files #B.1: Bioshock

 Developer: 2K Boston, 2K Australia
Publisher: 2K Games
Release:  21 August 2007 (Steam)

So I'll admit, I never really saw eye to eye with this game when it first came out, which is partly why I committed to reviewing this one first. This game only entered my collection about a year ago and hasn't really got a proper play through yet. I don't particularly tend to enjoy horror/thriller style games, which this sort of fits, so it's not really a surprise that I never got particularly far in it.

 On starting the game, you're presented with a main menu that shows off the style of the game perfectly, with the fusion of post-war and steampunk styles and technology. Mechanical gearing makes a very prominent display in the charming options menus, giving them a sense of character that makes sure that you achieve near-total immersion from the moment you enter the game. This same immersion is quite important, because without it you'd likely miss the feeling of wonder that distracts the gaze out of the game's many windows, showing the full might and majesty of the city of Rapture.

An 'in-style' options menu is a very nice feature.

 Which brings us to the beginning of the game. A short pair of 'title-slides' bookend an equally brief introductory cutscene, showing the player character upon an aircraft that then ditches into the ocean. Miraculously, the character emerges from the wreckage relatively unscathed and next to a suspect looking lighthouse in the middle of the Atlantic.

 Upon reaching the lighthouse you'll find a bathysphere waiting to take you down into the depths, and it is at this point we get a few glimpses of Rapture's immense size and majesty.

 And so the player enters Rapture. The station here serves as a tutorial location, where you get your first introduction to splicers, your 'bread-and-butter' enemies throughout the game. Splicers are horrific beasts, mutated both by surgical experimentation and perversion of their DNA by the way of 'ADAM'. ADAM is the name used for reservoirs of stem cells that are used to give people unnatural abilities in the form of 'plasmids', which in turn are occasionally found in vials around levels or purchased from the Gatherer's Garden machine (Incidentally, this also references the Little Sister's original name. Probably a good thing, as 'Little Sister's Garden' sounds a bit like a paedophile's codeword). You'll encounter a number of types of splicers throughout the game, but the Thuggish and Leadhead variants are the most common.

As part of the tutorial, the player will have their first encounter with a plasmid vial, which gives the player a bit of a kick, leading into a short non-interactive segment where a Big Daddy narrowly saves you from being eviscerated by splicers. This segment gives a first up close of the Big Daddy and Little Sister (Little Sisters' role is to harvest ADAM from corpses) and also possibly the only time you'll see the pair this close without getting your face shot to pieces or drilled into.

 With the tutorial covered, you're then free to continue the main quest in other splendid locations throughout Rapture and find Andrew Ryan. However, I won't spoil the story for those that haven't played it. But I will note one thing; the observant viewer or gamer will have noticed the tattoo on the wrists of the player character. This tattoo becomes particularly relevant later on in the plot, where you uncover a plot twist.

For the game as a whole, I was pretty impressed, given that this sort of psuedo-horror/thriller game genre isn't really my thing. The aesthetic of the game is fantastic, giving a similar sort of post-war and steampunk feel that is shown in Fallout 3. There are a range of plasmids that fulfil different purposes, but the one you'll use most is the electric shock, which stuns enemies and provides a damage amplifier, but also temporarily disables electronic security devices, allowing you to hack them and turn them to your side. The turrets are both formidable enemies but powerful allies when hacked. I will note that later in the game you get access to a plasmid that allows you to make a Big Daddy protect you. However, they take this to the extreme and will attack turrets even after you hack them, and if they damage the Big Daddy it becomes hostile again. It's an interesting gap in the AI logic, but that situation should be quite rare in the game, so doesn't pose a major issue.

The story throughout is quite interesting and captivating, and more often than not the audio logs that can be found scattered around levels are interesting to listen to, always providing an added insight into the world of Rapture and occasionally give a background into the equally interesting NPC characters you'll occasionally meet.

The 'conventional' weapons provided throughout the game are also quite interesting an varied, and they're all upgradeable. The means of upgrading them is by simply going to one of the somewhat rare one-use upgrade terminals and selecting the upgrade. However, the application of the upgrades touches a soft spot for me. Every upgrade made to your weapons introduces a physical alteration to the device, which is highlighted directly after acquiring it so you immediately notice the difference. Again, the upgrades always fit in the same style, and often have the appearance of a 'DIY' upgrade rather than something the manufacturer would provide. This hits a soft spot for me in particular because it shows how much attention to detail goes into the game, a point often lost in the magical environments and settings. The best part of a game's aesthetics are quite often the things most will rarely bother to look at, like the additional details and upgrade provides, or the cityscape that is displayed out of the windows

So, whilst I've not finished Bioshock at time of writing, I am very much happy with the experience. I can safely recommend it as a purchase now (or preferably during a Steam Sale) given the initial hype around the game has long since dissipated. Even if it's not a game you'd normally consider picking up.

I intend to review Bioshock 2 as part of this series, by which time I will have completed Bioshock and will include my final thoughts on the original.

But for now, I'll finish with these pictures:

The in-game Help covers a range of topics

This scripted encounter shows a protective Big Daddy unleashing on a predatory splicer.

The hacking mini-game is a slightly over-used distraction.

It's pretty much a more complex version of those pipe maze games that used to be popular

Active plasmid abilities (as opposed to the passive ones, which are called tonics) reward you with an infomercial when you acquire them

The loading screens are all in style too.

The water effects are gorgeous. In fact, the rank among they best in any game I've played.

The Steam Files #A.1: Audiosurf

Developer/Publisher: Dylan Fitterer
Release: 15th Feb 2008 (Steam)

So, wow. I actually haven't picked this game up in quite a while, largely because most of the songs I played on it tend to induce near heart attacks towards the end.

There are quite a few choices for characters

It's actually quite difficult to play Double Vision by yourself.

Ok, so let's step back a little. Audiosurf is a game based on music. That much is quite obvious. The game takes music tracks and uses the instrument data to construct 'race tracks' that are then populated with blocks, which are called cars whilst on the track, that you either avoid or pick up. My favourite mode is Ninja Mono, where Mono is a gametype where the blocks that are coloured must be picked up, and the grey blocks must be avoided. I like it because of the simplicity and the manic wrist mangling often involved. There are a bunch of other characters though, like Double Vision, which allows you to play with a partner at the same PC, or with yourself if you're insane enough, and Pointman, which allows you to store blocks for later.

It's quite common to get valleys or mountains in tracks.

Once you've picked a song and a character, the game generates the track, and gives you a preview of the track you'll play. The game represents slow tempo as the ascending portions up to the peak, and the high tempo as the descents to the troughs. This gives you an indication of how fast your vehicle moves, but doesn't always represent the volume of blocks you can expect, which varies wildly between songs and difficulty levels. As mentioned before, you pick up or avoid these blocks depending on their colour and the game mode, but when you have any three or more blocks of the same colour touching in the buffer, they will flash and eventually disappear, giving you points.

A group of linked blocks are blinking in gripping anticipation

The game is graphically beautiful, with the scenery changing with every different song played. And whilst I cannot, obviously, judge the game on the quality of it's music, it offers a range of types of tones for actions like picking up blocks or using powerups, but also gives you the option to mute the sounds too, if you'd rather hear the song. A nice feature of the game is that everything responds to the beat of the music, the colours change from a cool green to a fiery red-orange as the tempo speeds up, and the vehicles bounce more merrily in their lanes.

Overall, this is a simple, but addictive and well-executed musical arcade game. It is also somewhat responsible for the large number of similar games that followed (like Beat Hazard among others), no doubt eager to capitalise in the unexploited niche mixing user provided music with addictive and procedural gameplay mechanics.



Most people reading this review, probably have this game. If you don't, go get it. If you never understood the hype behind this emerging genre, then you will after this game.

Note: The music used in this playthrough was from the Planetary Confinement - Bitscape set, by Sterling McKay. You can check it out here, and you'd make my friend very happy if you went and purchased it here.

Hello World!

Hello all.

Just to give you an introduction to what this blog will be about, I will blog a mixture of game reviews and gaming news. Most of my reviews are likely to be around games that have been out for a while, and all the games I will review will be PC games.

I will review games on Windows 7 and Ubuntu.

My first set of reviews will be based on an alphabetical random selection of games from my Steam library. I intend to do a review once a week, probably on a Sunday at some point during the day (UK time).

If you want to request a game to be reviewed, feel free to add me on Steam and message me.

Regards,

Topperfalkon.